expanded, under the influence of the outward nature round about him, she taught the child, to the best of her humble power, to acknowledge the Maker of all; and every night and every morning he and she-(in that awful and touching communion which I think must bring a thrill to the heart of every man who witnesses or who remembers it) the mother and the little boy-prayed to Our Father together, the mother pleading with all her gentle heart, the child lisping after as she spoke. And each time they prayed to God to bless dear papa, as if he were alive and in the room with them. To wash and dress this young gentleman -to take him for a run of the mornings, before breakfast, and the retreat of grandpapa for "business"-to make for him the most wonderful and ingenious dresses, for which end the thrifty widow cut up and altered every available little bit of finery which she possessed out of her wardrobe during her marriage-for Mrs. Osborne herself (greatly to her mother's vexation, who preferred fine clothes, especially since her misfortunes) always wore a black gown, and a straw bonnet with a black ribbon-occupied her many hours of the day. Others she had to spare, at the service of her mother and her old father. She had taken the pains to learn, and used to play cribbage with this gentleman on the nights when he did not go to his club. She sang for him when he was so minded, and it was a good sign, for he invariably fell into a comfortable sleep during the music. She wrote out his numerous memorials, letters, prospectuses, and projects. It was in her hand-writing that most of the old gentleman's former acquaintances were informed that he had become an agent to the Black Diamond and Anti-Cinder Coal Company, and could supply his friends and the public with the best coals ats. per caldron. All he did was to sign the circulars with his flourish and signature, and direct them in a shaky, clerk-like hand. One of these papers was sent to Major Dobbin, Regt., care of Messrs. Cox and Greenwood; but the major being in Madras at the time, had no particular call for coals. He knew, though, the hand which had written the prospectus. Good God! what would he not have given to hold it in his own! A second prospectus came out, informing the major that J. Sedley and Company, having established agencies at Oporto, Bordeaux, and St. Mary's, were enabled to offer to their friends and the public generally, the finest and most celebrated growths of ports, sherries, and claret wines at reasonable prices, and under extraordinary advantages. Acting upon this hint, Dobbin furiously canvassed the governor, the commander-in-chief, the judges, the regiments, and every body whom he knew in the Presidency, and sent home to Sedley and Co. orders for wine which perfectly astonished Mr. Sedley and Mr. Clapp, who was the Co. in the business. But no more orders came after that first burst of good fortune, on which poor old Osborne was about to build a house in the city, a regiment of clerks, a dock to himself, and correspondents all over the world. The old gentleman's former taste in wine had gone: the curses of the mess-room assailed Major Dobbin for the vile drinks he had been the means of introducing there; and he bought back a great quantity of the wine, and sold it at public outcry, at an enormous loss to himself. As for Jos, who was by this time promoted to a seat at the Revenue Board at Calcutta, he was wild with rage when the post brought him out a bundle of these Bacchanalian prospectuses, with a private note from his father, telling Jos that his senior counted upon him in this enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select wines to him, as per invoice, drawing bills upon him for the amount of the same. Jos, who would no more have it supposed that his father, Jos Sedley's father, of the Board of Revenue, was a wine merchant asking for orders, than that he was Jack Ketch, refused the bills with scorn, wrote back contumeliously to the old gentleman, bidding him to mind his own affairs; and the protested paper coming back, Sedley and Co. had to take it up with the profits which they made out of the Madras venture, and with a little portion of Emmy's savings. Besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had been five hundred pounds, as her husband's executor stated, left in the agent's hands at the time of Osborne's demise, which sum, as George's guardian, Dobbin proposed to put out at eight per cent, in an Indian house of agency. Mr. Sedley, who thought that the major had some roguish intentions of his own about the money, was strongly against this plan; and he went to the agents to protest personally against the employment of the money in question, when he learned, to his surprise, that there had been no such sum in their hands, that all the late captain's assets did not amount to a hundred pounds, and that the five hundred pounds in question must be a separate sum, of which Major Dobbin knew the particulars. More than ever convinced that there was some roguery, old Sedley pursued the major. As his daughter's nearest friend, he demanded, with a high hand, a statement of the late captain's accounts. Dobbin's stammering, blushing, and awkwardness added to the other's convictions that he had a rogue to deal with; and in a majestic tone he told that officer a piece of his mind, as he called it, simply stating his belief that the major was unlawfully detaining his late son-in-law's money. Dobbin at this lost all patience, and if his state at church at Brompton, and was congratulated by her female friends upon the splendid acquisition. Emmy's, too, became prettily her modest black gown. "What a pity it is she won't think of him," Mrs. Sedley remarked to Mrs. Clapp, and to all her friends of Brompton. "Jos never sent us such presents, I am sure and grudges us every thing. It is evident that the major is over head and ears in love with her and yet, whenever I so much as hint it, she turns red and begins to cry, and goes and sits up-stairs with her miniature. I'm sick of that miniature. I wish we had never seen those odious purse-proud Osbornes." accuser had not been so old and so broken, a | worth fifty guineas apiece at the very least, quarrel might have ensued between them at as Mrs. Sedley knew. She wore hers in the Slaughter's Coffee-house, in a box of which place of entertainment the gentlemen had their colloquy. "Come up-stairs, sir," lisped out the major. "I insist on your coming up-stairs, and I will show which is the injured party, poor George or I;" and, dragging the old gentleman up to his bedroom, he produced from his desk Osborne's accounts, and a bundle of I O U which the latter had given, who, to do him justice, was always ready to give an I O U. "He paid his bills in England," Dobbin added, but he had not a hundred pounds in the world when he fell. I and one or two of his brotherofficers made up a little sum, which was all that we could spare, and you dare to tell us that we are trying to cheat the widow and orphan." Sedley was very contrite and humbled, though the fact is, that William Dobbin had told a great falsehood to the old gentleman; having himself given every shilling of the money, having buried his friend, and paid all the fees and charges incident upon the calamity and removal of poor Amelia. About these expenses old Osborne had never given himself any trouble to think, nor any other relative of Amelia, nor Amelia herself, indeed. She trusted to Major Dobbin as an accountant, took his somewhat confused calculations for granted: and never once suspected how much she was in his debt. Amidst such humble scenes and associates George's early youth was passed, and the boy grew up delicate, sensitive, imperious, woman-bred-domineering the gentle mother whom he loved with passionate affection. He ruled all the rest of the little world round about him. As he grew, the elders were amazed at his haughty manner and his constant likeness to his father. He asked questions about every thing, as inquiring youth will do. The profundity of his remarks and interrogatories astonished his old grandfather, who perfectly bored the club at the tavern with stories about the little lad's learning and genius. He suffered his grandmother with a good-humored indifference. small circle round about him believed that the equal of the boy did not exist upon the earth. Georgy inherited his father's pride, and perhaps thought they were not wrong. The Twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise, she wrote him letters to Madras, letters all about little Georgy. How When he grew to be about six years old, he treasured these papers! Whenever Dobbin began to write to him very much. Amelia wrote he answered, and not until The major wanted to hear that Georgy was then. But he sent over endless remem- going to a school, and hoped he would acquit brances of himself to his godson and to her. himself with credit there: or would he have He ordered and sent a box of scarfs, and a a good tutor at home? it was time that he grand ivory set of chess-men from China. should begin to learn; and his godfather and The pawns were little green and white men, guardian hinted that he hoped to be allowed with real swords and shields; the knights to defray the charges of the boy's education, were on horseback, the castles were on the which would fall heavily upon his mother's backs of elephants. "Mrs. Mango's own straitened income. The major, in a word, set at the Pineries was not so fine," Mr. was always thinking about Amelia and her Pestler remarked. These chess-men were little boy, and by orders to his agents kept the delight of Georgy's life, who printed his the latter provided with picture-books, paintfirst letter in acknowledgment of this gift of boxes, desks, and all conceivable implements his godpapa. He sent over preserves and of amusement and instruction. Three days pickles, which latter the young gentleman before George's sixth birth-day, a gentleman tried surreptitiously in the sideboard, and in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove up half-killed himself with eating. He thought to Mr. Sedley's house, and asked to see it was a judgment upon him for stealing, Master George Osborne: it was Mr. Woolthey were so hot. Emmy wrote a comical sey, military tailor, of Conduit-street, who little account of this mishap to the major: it pleased him to think that her spirits were rallying, and that she could be merry sometimes now. He sent over a pair of shawls, a white one for her, and a black one with palm-leaves for her mother, and a pair of red scarfs, as winter wrappers, for old Mr. Sedley and George. The shawls were came at the major's order to measure the young gentleman for a suit of cloth clothes. He had had the honor of making for the captain, the young gentleman's father. Sometimes too, and by the major's desire no doubt, his sisters, the Misses Dobbin, would call in the family carriage to take Amelia and the little boy a drive if they were so inclined. The patronage and kind- | family," she said, charitably. "Pitt will ness of these ladies was very uncomfortable never spend it, my dear, that is quite certo Amelia, but she bore it meekly enough, tain; for a greater miser does not exist in for her nature was to yield; and, besides, England, and he is as odious, though in a the carriage and its splendors gave little different way, as his spendthrift brother, the Georgy immense pleasure. The ladies abandoned Rawdon." begged occasionally that the child might pass a day with them, and he was always glad to go to that fine garden-house at Denmark Hill, where they lived, and where there were such fine grapes in the hothouses and peaches on the walls. One day they kindly came over to Amelia with news which they were sure would delight her-something very interesting about their dear William. 66 What was it was he coming home?" she asked with pleasure beaming in her eyes. 66 Oh, no-not the least-but they had very good reason to believe that dear William was about to be married-and to a relation of a very dear friend of Amelia'sto Miss Glorvina O'Dowd, Sir Michael O'Dowd's sister, who had gone out to join Lady O'Dowd at Madras-a very beautiful and accomplished girl, every body said." Amelia said "Oh!" Amelia was very, very happy indeed. But she supposed Glorvina could not be like her old acquaintance, who was most kind-but-but she was very happy indeed. And by some impulse, of which I can not explain the meaning, she took George in her arms and kissed him with an extraordinary tenderness. Her eyes were quite moist when she put the child down; and she scarcely spoke a word during the whole of the drive-though she was so very happy indeed. CHAPTER XXXIX. A CYNICAL CHAPTER. : So Mrs. Bute, after the first shock of rage and disappointment, began to accommodate herself as best she could to her altered fortunes, and to save and retrench with all her might. She instructed her daughters how to bear poverty cheerfully, and invented a thousand notable methods to conceal or evade it. She took them about to balls and public places in the neighborhood, with praiseworthy energy; nay, she entertained her friends in a hospitable, comfortable manner at the Rectory, and much more frequently than before dear Miss Crawley's legacy had fallen in. From her outward bearing nobody would have supposed that the family had been disappointed in their expectations or have guessed from her frequent appearance in public how she pinched and starved at home. Her girls had more milliner's furniture than they had ever enjoyed before. They appeared perseveringly at the Winchester and Southampton assemblies; they penetrated to Cowes for the raceballs and regatta-gayeties there; and their carriage, with the horses taken from the plough, was at work perpetually, until it began almost to be believed that the four sisters had had fortunes left them by their aunt, whose name the family never mentioned in public but with the most tender gratitude and regard. I know no sort of lying which is more frequent in Vanity Fair than this; and it may be remarked how people who practice it take credit to themselves for their hypocrisy, and fancy that they are exceedingly virtuous and praiseworthy, because they are able to deceive the world with regard to the extent of their means. OUR duty now takes us back for a brief Mrs. Bute certainly thought herself one space to some old Hampshire acquaintances of the most virtuous women in England, and of ours, whose hopes respecting the disposal the sight of her happy family was an edifyof their rich kinswoman's property were so ing one to strangers. They were so cheerwofully disappointed. After counting upon ful, so loving, so well-educated, so simple! thirty thousand pounds from his sister, it Martha painted flowers exquisitely, and was a heavy blow to Bute Crawley to receive furnished half the charity-bazaars in the but five; out of which sum, when he had county. Emma was a regular county bulbul, paid his own debts and those of Jim, his son at college, a very small fragment remained to portion off his four plain daughters. Mrs. Bute never knew, or at least never acknowledged, how far her own tyrannous behavior had tended to ruin her husband. All that woman could do, she vowed and protested she had done. Was it her fault if she did not possess those sycophantic arts which her hypocritical nephew, Pitt Crawley, practiced? She wished him all the happiness which he merited out of his ill-gotten gains. "At least the money will remain in the and her verses in the " Hampshire Telegraph" were the glory of its Poets' Corner. Fanny and Matilda sang duets together, mamma playing the piano, and the other two sisters sitting with their arms round each other's waists, and listening affectionately. Nobody saw the poor girls drumming at the duets in private. No one saw mamma drilling them rigidly hour after hour. In a word, Mrs. Bute put a good face against fortune, and kept up appearances in the most virtuous manner. Every thing that a good and respectable mother could do Mrs. Bute did. She got | King's Head to rub 'em a little? How do, over yachting men from Southampton, par- Pitt? How do, my dear? Come to see the sons from the Cathedral Close at Winches-old man, hay ? 'Gad-you've a pretty face, ter, and officers from the barracks there. too. You ain't like that old horse-godmothShe tried to inveigle the young harristers at er, your mother. Come and give old Pitt a assizes, and encouraged Jim to bring home kiss, like a good little gal." friends with whom he went out hunting The embrace disconcerted the daughterwith the H. H. What will not a mother in-law somewhat, as the caresses of old do for the benefit of her beloved ones? gentlemen unshorn and perfumed with toBetween such a woman and her brother-bacco might well do. But she remembered in-law, the odious baronet at the Hall, it is manifest that there could be very little in common. The rupture between Bute and his brother Sir Pitt was complete; indeed, between Sir Pitt and the whole county, to which the old man was a scandal. His dislike for respectable society increased with age, and the lodge-gates had not opened to a gentleman's carriage-wheels since Pitt and Lady Jane came to pay their visit of duty after their marriage. That was an awful and unfortunate visit, never to be thought of by the family without horror. Pitt begged his wife, with a ghastly countenance, never to speak of it; and it was only through Mrs. Bute herself, who still knew every thing which took place at the Hall, that the circumstances of Sir Bute's reception of his son and daughter-in-law were ever known at all. that her brother Southdown had mustaches, and smoked cigars, and submitted to the baronet with a tolerable grace. Pitt has got vat," said the baronet, after this mark of affection. "Does he read ee very long zermons, my dear? Hundredth Psalm, Evening Hymn, hay Pitt? Go and get a glass of Malmsey and a cake for my Lady Jane, Horrocks, you great big booby, and don't stand staring there like a fat pig. I won't ask you to stop, my dear; you'll find it too stoopid, and so should I too along a Pitt. I'm an old man now, and like my own ways, and my pipe and backgammon of a night." "I can play at backgammon, sir," said Lady Jane, laughing. "I used to play with papa and Miss Crawley, did'nt I, Mr. Crawley?" 66 Lady Jane can play, sir, at the game to which you state that you are so partial,' Pitt said, haughtily. "But she waw'nt stop for all that. Naw, naw, goo back to Mudbury and give Mrs. Rincer a benefit: or drive down to the Rectory, and ask Buty for a dinner. He'll be charmed to see you, you know; he's so much obliged to you for gittin the old woman's money. Ha, ha. Some of it will do to patch up the Hall when I'm gone." "I perceive, sir," said Pitt, with a heightened voice, that your people will cut down the timber.” 66 As they drove up the avenue of the park in their neat and well-appointed carriage, Pitt remarked with dismay and wrath great gaps among the trees-his trees-which the old baronet was felling entirely without license. The park wore an aspect of utter dreariness and ruin. The drives were ill kept, and the neat carriage splashed and foundered in muddy pools along the road. The great sweep in front of the terrace and entrance stair was black and covered with mosses; the once trim flower-beds rank and weedy. Shutters were up along almost the whole line of the house; the great hall- Yees, yees, very fine weather, and seadoor was unbarred after much ringing of the sonable for the time of the year," Sir Pitt bell; an individual in ribbons was seen flit- answered, who had suddenly grown deaf. ting up the black oak stair, as Horrocks at "But I'm gittin old, Pitt, now. Law bless length admitted the heir of Queen's Craw-you, you ain't far from fifty yourself. But ley and his bride into the halls of their fa- he wears well, my pretty Lady Jane, don't thers. He led the way into Sir Pitt's he? It's all godliness, sobriety, and a moral Library," as it was called, the fumes of tobacco growing stronger as Pitt and Lady Jane approached that apartment. Sir Pitt ain't very well, Horrocks remarked apologetically, and hinted that his master was afflicted with lumbago. 66 The library looked out on the front walk and park. Sir Pitt had opened one of the windows, and was bawling out thence to the postillion and Pitt's servant, who seemed to be about to take the baggage down. "Don't move none of them trunks," he cried, pointing with a pipe which he held in his hand. "It's only a morning visit, Tucker, yon fool. Lor, what cracks that off hoss has in his heels! Ain't there no one at the N life. Look at me, I'm not very fur from fowr-score-he, he;" and he laughed, and took snuff, and leered at her, and pinched her hand. Pitt once more brought the conversation back to the timber; but the baronet was deaf again in an instant. "I'm gittin very old, and have been cruel bad this year with the lumbago. I shan't be here now for long; but I'm glad ee've come, daughter-in-law. I like your face, Lady Jane: it's got none of the damned high-boned Biukie look in it; and I'll give ee something pretty, my dear, to go to court in." And he shuffled across the room to a cupboard, from which he took a little old 66 case containing jewels of some value. Take agined, as these reports of his father's that," said he, "my dear; it belonged to my dotage reached the most exemplary and cormother, and afterward to the first Lady rect of gentlemen. He trembled daily lest he Binkie. Pretty pearls-never gave 'em the should hear that the ribbons was proclaimed ironmonger's daughter. No, no. Take 'em his second legal mother-in-law. After that and put 'em up quick," said he, thrusting first and last visit, his father's name was the case into his daughter's hand, and clap- never mentioned in Pitt's polite and genteel ding the door of the cabinet to, as Horrocks establishment. It was the skeleton in his entered with a salver and refreshments. house, and all the family walked by it in "What have you a been and given Pitt's terror and silence. The Countess Southwife?" said the individual in ribbons, when down kept on dropping per coach at the Pitt and Lady Jane had taken leave of the lodge-gate the most exciting tracts, tracts old gentleman. It was Miss Horrocks, the which ought to frighten the hair off your butler's daughter-the cause of the scandal head. Mrs. Bute at the parsonage nightly throughout the county-the lady who reign- looked out to see if the sky was red over ed now almost supreme at Queen's Crawley. the elms behind which the Hall stood, and The rise and progress of those ribbons the mansion was on fire. Sir G. Wapshot had been marked with dismay by the coun- and Sir H. Fuddlestone, old friends of the ty and family. The ribbons opened an ac- house would'nt sit on the bench with Sir count at the Mudbury Branch Savings' Bank; Pitt at Quarter Sessions, and cut him dead the ribbons drove to church, monopolizing in the High-street of Southampton, where the pony-chaise, which was for the use of the reprobate stood offering his dirty old the servants at the Hall. The domestics hands to them. Nothing had any effect were dismissed at her pleasure. The Scotch upon him; he put his hands into his pockgardener, who still lingered on the premises, ets, and burst out laughing, as he scrambled taking a pride in his walls and hothouses, into his carriage and four; he used to burst and indeed making a pretty good livelihood out laughing at Lady Sonthdown's tracts; by the garden, which he farmed, and of and he laughed at his sons, and at the world, which he sold the produce at Southampton, and at the ribbons when she was angry, found the ribbons eating peaches in a sun- which was not seldom. shiny morning at the south wall, and had his ears boxed, when he remonstrated about this attack on his property. He and his Scotch wife and his Scotch children, the only respectable inhabitants of Queen's Crawley, were forced to migrate, with their goods and their chattels, and left the stately comfortable gardens to go to waste, and the flower-beds to run to seed. Poor Lady Crawley's rose-garden became the dreariest wilderness. Only two or three domestics shuddered in the bleak old servants' hall. The stables and offices were vacant, and shut up, and half ruined. Sir Pitt lived in private and boozed nightly with Horrocks, his butler or house-steward (as he now began to be called), and the abandoned ribbons. The times were very much changed since the period when she drove to Mudbury in the spring-cart, and called the small tradesmen "sir." It may have been shame, or it may have been dislike of his neighbors, but the old cynic of Queen's Crawley hardly issued from his park-gates at all now. He quarreled with his agents, and screwed his tenants by letter. His days were passed in conducting his own correspondence; the lawyers and farm-bailiffs, who had to do business with him, could not reach him but through the ribbons, who received them at the door of the housekeeper's room, which commanded the back entrance by which they were admitted; and so the baronet's daily perplexities increased, and his embarrassments multiplied round him. The horror of Pitt Crawley may be im Miss Horrocks was installed as housekeeper at Queen's Crawley, and ruled all the domestics there with great majesty and vigor. All the servants were instructed to address her as "Mum," or " Madam,"-and there was one little maid, on her promotion, who persisted in calling her "My Lady," without any rebuke on the part of the housekeeper. "There has been better ladies, and there has been worser, Hester," was Miss Horrocks' reply to this compliment of her inferior; so she ruled, having supreme power over all except her father, whom, however, she treated with considerable haughtiness, warning him not to be too familiar in his behavior to one" as was to be a baronet's lady." Indeed, she rehearsed that exalted part in life with great satisfaction to herself, and to the amusement of old Sir Pitt, who chuckled at her airs and graces, and would laugh by the hour together at her assumptions of dignignity, and imitations of genteel life. He swore it was as good as a play to see her in the character of a fine dame, and he made her put on one of the first Lady Crawley's court-dresses, swearing (entirely to Miss Horrocks' own concurrence), that the dress became her prodigiously, and threatening to drive her off that very instant to court in a coach-and-four. She had the ransacking of the wardrobes of the two defunct ladies, and cut and hacked their posthumous finery so as to suit her own taste and figure. And she would have liked to take possession of their jewels and trinkets too; but the old baronet had locked them away in his private |